Gaming, films and the pursuit of Pokemon.

Does anyone else remember the Nintendo Adventure books? I had completely forgotten about them until I stumbled across them by chance on another blog. Looking back on it these books formed a fairly large part of my reading roster as a child. For those who haven’t read them, the Nintendo Adventure books are a great series based around stories set in the Mario and Zelda universes. In a style similar to that of the Goosebumps books (another childhood favourite) the majority of the stories incorporate an element of choice into the story telling. Each decision leads you to different pages and ultimately to different endings. The choices that you make can literally make the difference between character’s living and dying. If they die its game over and you have to go back to an earlier point of the book and try again. I really loved them because literature was a love of mine long before video-gaming was, so it was great to read books which contained my favourite video game stars. The element of choice in the books was also entertaining and allowed you to feel more involved in the story, and as such made you feel more immersed in the gaming universes. My particular favourite in the Mario series involves a story where Mario needs to be shrunk so that he can rescue Luigi from Yoshi’s stomach. As far as I can remember Yoshi had eaten Luigi at his birthday party, possibly mistaking him for cake.

Thinking about these books has made me realise that I very much enjoy reading stories or comics about gaming characters. They add an extra element of depth to many of the characters, and this helps to bring them to life. A good example of this would be the Sonic comics that I used to collect as a child. I honestly have no idea if they are still in print (I suspect not) but they were fantastic. They not only had great story lines and lovely artistic style, but they also managed to give more life to many of Sonic’s supporting cast, many of whom remain pretty anonymous in the games themselves. If you can manage to get your hands on either the books of the comics, do so. Obviously they will be a tad too simplistic for an adult audience but are nevertheless worth a read, at the very least any kids/nieces and nephews you have will love them.